Cambridge, Lexington concerts celebrate the music of lyricist Sammy Cahn

Wednesday

Apr 3, 2013 at 12:01 AMApr 3, 2013 at 3:21 AM

The magic of inspirational music does not fade as the decades pass, even as those who created it inevitably do. It is for this reason that American Classics is putting on a 100th birthday concert celebrations in Cambridge and Lexington titled "It’s Magic" to commemorate the lifelong musical achievements of lyricist Sammy Cahn.

Taylor Markarian/DAILY NEWS CORRESPONDENT

The magic of inspirational music does not fade as the decades pass, even as those who created it inevitably do. It is for this reason that American Classics is putting on a 100th birthday concert celebrations in Cambridge and Lexington titled "It’s Magic" to commemorate the lifelong musical achievements of lyricist Sammy Cahn.

Co-producers and performers Benjamin Sears and Bradford Conner, who have worked with American Classics since 1996, are overjoyed at the idea of giving Cahn his due recognition.

"Over the years we’ve done various hundred birthday salutes to various performers," Sears says. "One of our regular audience members came to us last year and told us that this year was the 100th birthday year for Sammy Cahn, and is that something we’d be interested in doing. We started studying and researching Cahn and his work and, as so often happens with us, we got very caught up in it and excited about the songs. So here we are."

The concert celebration is titled after one of the songs for which Cahn wrote lyrics; a song that Sears and Conner believe perfectly encapsulates his prolific career.

"When you have a song title like that, how can you resist using it?" Sears jests. "It’s not so much the idea that we’re going to be performing magic, but when people use language well, which the songwriters of Cahn’s era and certainly Cahn himself did, it is magic."

Being the man behind the music icons, Sammy Cahn isn’t a name that always crosses listeners’ minds. His words, however, are known by those of all generations of Americans, whether they are aware of it or not.

"Some of these songs have just become some of our vernacular. It’s just not December without people singing ‘Let It Snow,’ " says Sears.

Conner adds, "If you watched the Oscars this year with Seth MacFarlane, one of the songs he did was ‘High hopes,’ and as soon as he started singing it, the whole audience burst into applause. They all burst into applause over a song."

Cahn, who wrote for many famous faces of music such as Frank Sinatra, Doris Day and Jule Styne, broke into popular culture in his time with lyrics the vast majority could understand.

Sears says, "The lyricists who were a generation ahead of Sammy Cahn were very conscious of poetic forms, and Cahn was, certainly, but not quite in the same way. Cahn is a little more conversational. He can use a common expression in music and make it very lyrical."

"His way with a lyric had sort of a natural quality to it and an ease to it that was very appealing," Conner summarizes.

"You think how wonderful Shakespeare is because of the way he uses language, and Dickens. One of the songs that we’re doing is "Three Coins in the Fountain", which was a very famous song of its time. What he does in that is he keeps repeating phrases, which seems very obvious and maybe an easy way out, and yet in terms of what the song is trying to say it makes sense to just keep repeating these things," Conner says. "Sometimes the easy stuff is most effective."

The show will be a celebration of a lifetime’s worth of grand and influential work, as well as something as simple as the life of a man.

Sears says of Cahn, "He loved writing songs, he loved life, and you get a sense of that from his songs. I think because he had fun and we’re having fun the audience is going to have fun."

"This is one that I’m not going to hesitate to say ‘It doesn’t get any better than this’," says Conner.

"It’s Magic" will be performed on Friday, April 5 at 7:30 at the Follen Community Church, 755 Massachusetts Avenue, Lexington and Sunday, April 7 at 3 p.m. at the Pickman Concert Hall of the Longy School of Music, 27 Garden St., Cambridge. Tickets are $25, $20 for students and seniors. To purchase tickets, visit www.amclass.org or call 617-254-1125.